There are many, many reasons to vote for Len McCluskey as General Secretary if you’re a Unite member. McCluskey ‘gets it’ – the importance of strong unions to the lives of not just their members but of the ‘99%’, those of us who are not beneficiaries of the Tories’ tax cuts for the rich and who suffer from the huge cuts in vital services that they make to fund them. He has fire, spine – and loyalty.

His main challenger Gerard Coyne, on the other hand, is insipid, beholden to right-wing interests and has fought a campaign based on smears, innuendo and hypocrisy. What passes for his ‘vision’ for the union involves a Trump-like retreat behind walls, sticking fingers in ears and saying ‘lala’ while society is dismantled around it, ignoring that Unite members have family and friends who might not be members but still need the country’s…

When the SKWAWKBOX broke the news last week that Emily Thornberry is considering a challenge against Tom Watson for the Labour deputy leader position, the right-wing response was the predictable ‘fake news’ smear.

Future Labour Deputy Leader?

Well, the challenge has enough substance that it was referred to by the BBC’s Westminster Hour as part of its preamble to an interview with Ms Thornberry this evening, so it looks like the mainstream media playing catch-up to the SKWAWKBOX again.

And, far more importantly, that the eminently suitable Ms T is poised for a challenge as soon as the nominations – already at over 35 of the 50 required to force a contest – are lined up, just as this blog revealed.

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PoliticsHome and the Huffington Post have run this morning with stories of a Corbyn ‘staffing crisis’ with a supposed ‘exodus’ – three people, two of whom are leaving for health reasons (no speech marks on that, thank you).

Neither contains a single word from any of the staff who are leaving, as no doubt their comments wouldn’t fit the narrative.

The articles are little more than an attempt to manufacture the perception of Labour falling apart or, as the Huffington Post puts it,

still reeling from its defeat to the Conservatives in the Copeland by-election

Lazy, contemptible ‘journalism’.

Meanwhile, in actual news worthy of the name but which seems glaringly absent from the mainstream, Labour was busy last night – not ‘reeling’, but winning.